I came across a post by @conboy recently about Community Annotation Challenges. I had been wondering about something similar recently both for annotations and observation fields. Adding these would be good to increase the value of data on iNaturalist. There is a tutorial on Using Identify to Annotate Observations. I’m not sure how much information there is about the various observation fields. The only one I’ve added to other people’s observations is roadkill.
I’m guessing there are a few people on iNaturalist who would like assistance annotating certain groups or adding observation fields. Maybe you’re editing regional atlas, maybe you’re doing some research, maybe you’d like nice graphs on your favourite taxa. How about creating a post with what you want annotated and any guidance that might be needed? I think conboy’s post above does this well for Monarchs. I’ve made this post a wiki (thanks tiwane) so if you create a challenge then you can add it to the list below. If there are a few then maybe we can add it to the ways to help out on iNat wiki.
Members with a trust level of 2 can make their post a wiki after they post it. Click on the elipsis icon (three dots), then click on the wrench icon and select “Make wiki”.
Awesome idea, thanks for the link back to that post too! I missed it first time around, and I learnt something new! I knew about the gland on the hind wing for males, but didn’t know about the thicker forewing veins on females…
I’m pretty sure he meant tags, annotations are a different thing. For example, this observation has one tag (“Snoopy the Woodrat”) and also two annotations (juvenile and male).
I meant annotations and observation fields (rather than tags). Observation fields can be added by anyone (unless the observer has opted out) and cover things that annotations don’t cover. For instance there is a roadkill observation field which I’ve added to any UK roadkill observations I have come across which allows us to see which species have the most roadkill observations in the UK.
It helps a lot for checking RG observations, I checked Fieldfare page and just by 10 mins found 2 RG obs with different species of thrushes and more observations in need of id with another birds on photos.
I think I started creating a wiki of commonly used fields, though I can’t find it now. If i remembered wrong… maybe that would be a helpful project for someone else to do, that i can maybe help with
